Morale In Battlefield/World War 2 Evolution

weasel_fierce said:
I doubt you can find any modern force that will accept 75% casualties before bugging out. For a platoon to company level fight, that would result in the unit effectively ceasing to exist as a combat formation.
History and reality simply doesnt carry this out.
)

historically it averages out at 30% I think
 
generally yeah. Curiously, in the american civil war, the units that took more losses than that were usually new recruits who simply didnt know that their veteran brethren would have bailed long ago :)


By means of example, Vor: Into the maelstrom, from now defunct FASA, had a very simple morale system. A squad tests morale if its out of coherency, and once it reaches 50% casualties. Failure either causes the squad to freeze for a turn (1-2 on 1D10), run away one turn (3-9) or rout completely (10)

Routs excepted, it was a one turn "panic" effect. The squaddies realize that most of them arent going to go home, and either panic, and bail untill they can gather their wits, or decide to slug it out for the duration.
 
For LaranosTZ's benefit:

Voracioustigger said:
Seriously think about this guys. These games represent small skirmishes. Even if you are absolutely terrified, are you just going to run away? No, you'll duck into cover and hide until it's safe to run.

Now consider how long these battles last... 6 turns. Considering that a MI trooper walks 8" a turn, and that's what? About 60feet (20m)? Let's say that's a slow walk (moving from cover to cover, ducking down from incoming fire), so they're moving about 2mph (that's REALLY slow). So over the course of a battle, your troops could move a max of 360ft. If my math is right, that puts the average skirmish at 2 minutes. Sure, we can maybe add a little time for giving and receiving orders, but this is really just a small skirmish, so by the time anyone is terrified enough to run, and then gets their wits about them to actually do so, the battle is probably already over.

Also, they're trying to decrease the load on the players, so having an additional thing to keep track of, Laranos, kinda falls into it. But as VT points out, how far are you going to get within that short amount of time? The supression system and the shatter system work without having to roll additional dice.
 
One thing I've found having played throuigh ll the test versions and the Studi campaign is that while you go down to your shatter point in one-off games, in a campaign not once did the loser hang around to shatter. With losses being relevant to the campaign system, especially with the special units rules, players prefrred to give up ground rather than suffer extreme losses.

We have to strike a balance between the fun stand alone game and the "serious" campaign style of gaming. I've always prefrred simple game systems coupled with player common sense than rigorous rules that stop you making the decisions.
 
I was actually personally dreading that they would add some complicated moral rules to the SST-set, but thankfully, the only thing done was the suppression and that my friends is a good, solid rule.

The interesting thing is that I have found that in most games of sst I've played players themselves seem to work on the morals of their models. They draw back figures in danger of being overran unless the situation absolutely demands a sacrifice or they make a simple commander error which leads to their troops being eaten/shot/destroyed by a variety of horrible events.

Though I do appreciate the rules for psychology in other games, they somehow dont seem fitting for the speed and brutality of the Evo rules... The most I can see troops react in such a short, savage timespan is shock and staggering which is perfectly simulated by the suppression rules...

The SST rules and now the Evo-set seem to me to have Always been about the speed and horror of true combat, not the brainnumbing hours of sitting and maneuvering. The Evo games start right from the moment poo hits the ventilation... and stop after a few moments of sheer violence and savagery... Then the other guys have time to start thinking about running...

Where as other games make comments like the game being a representation of a day long battle... these rules make no such claim... And I like it...
 
Maybe one test for each squad when it hits 50%, just a one time test, to see what it does, and as you said one for the complete army, when half of the squads miss their unit test.
IE/

10 squads/teams 10 total tests in game, once each at 50% of squad size
once 5 tests have failed then the Army needs to make a test.

Watching band of brothers, when the shermans turned up, they damaged or killed a lot of geman squads, so if each G squad was down to 50% and failed enough tests for the 50% of the army, the army makes a test, as in Part 3 last night, the german troops got hammered by the shermans, the German tanks did not, but with most of the force being troops, they caused the army check and forced the complete army in rerteat...., even that the German tanks could have killed the shermans, they did not get the chance, as somebody in command shouted rerteat..!!!

Small battles, the test could a less or higher number, depending on morale, so a SS unit still makes the 50/50 test, but more are needed the the 50% Army test to retreat, so 7 of of the 10 units etc...

"Did any of make make sense "..!!!!
Sorry about that
 
Darkghost said:
I think the Breaking/Shattering rules could be adjusted. Maybe after the army is below 50% strength each unit takes a morale-type check and if it fails, flees. It shouldn't be too hard to pass though. Then once its below 25% strength, the check becomes almost impossible, and re-occurs every turn. The game ends when no units are left. The check would of course be different for each army.

or maybe just a 'Gory Death' type of rule...
say models A and B are part of the same squad, and model A suffers a Kill result (maybe a Killx2) ... poor guy is just blown to pieces by an IED, or tank round that leaves nothing but pink mist on model B's face, and a pair of smoking boots.

Model B being the only squad member with direct line of sight to model A should probably have some sort of morale check, with the possibility of going all shell shocky, and either be rallied by his sergeants loving touch - or... I'm sure you guys see where this is going.

Am i underrating the supression aspect of this game?
 
1 thing that makes no sense to me... why does a tank shot only count as 1 shot as far as suppression is concerned? An artillary (please say artillary is coming!), air, or tank round... pretty much anything that causes a large explosion should count as 3 or 4 hits for suppression, grenades should count as two.
 
I think we should play a couple of games (even if just with proxies) before suggesting any morale tweaks.

I think it's hard to put in place hard and fast psycological rules because as already pointed out people act differently. What phases one person may enrage another. Someone might not be effected by an event until afterwards. Seems that it's hard to get a morale system that's real but that doesn't require alot of tracking and adds a real dimension to the game.

I'm sure if it's felt that it's needed Mongoose will S&P something to correct the current system but until then i think i'll give the current rules a fighting chance.

Just some thoughts...
 
I think you're right...
I'm going to try to get a game in Saturday with my already existing modern US forces and Iraqi insurgents.

I'll post results.
 
nope, but i thought you put up an MEA card on another thread... i cant see most of your posts from work - figured i'd just grab it when i got home.
 
Darkghost said:
1 thing that makes no sense to me... why does a tank shot only count as 1 shot as far as suppression is concerned?
Because once it's fired it takes a few seconds to reload, giving you time to run like heck.
 
britneyfan97 said:
nope, but i thought you put up an MEA card on another thread... i cant see most of your posts from work - figured i'd just grab it when i got home.


I'm sorry, but that's just the preview of the card layout, BF. I can't really release cards unless I get permission from one of the Mongeese.
 
Darkghost said:
1 thing that makes no sense to me... why does a tank shot only count as 1 shot as far as suppression is concerned? An artillary (please say artillary is coming!), air, or tank round... pretty much anything that causes a large explosion should count as 3 or 4 hits for suppression, grenades should count as two.

Here's the skinnie....

EFTFChallangerIIFinal.jpg


If your enemy is busy hugging each other, you can nail up to a good number of people...
 
Typo alert! the rules for the Chain Gun on the Challenger II card say it can shoot at the same time as the L30. I assume that should be the L55 main gun?
 
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